


Why are you so nervous (you shouldn't be, I like you)

by charons_boat



Series: A little bit of warmth (more, please) [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Cute boys, Fluff, M/M, Marching Band, Mentioned Chae Hyungwon, Mentioned Ji Changmin, Mentioned Mark Lee, Mentioned Qian Kun, Mentioned Yoon Dowoon - Freeform, Parades, band au, because i like fruit snacks, cheetah!mark, clarinetist!chenle, eric and dowoon are percussionists, finally i have a proper band au, floutist!jisung, fruit snacks, hyungwon plays french horn, ignore the ages they're all kinds of fucked, implied jinho/kevin if you wanna look at it that way, jaehyun and hyunjae play trumpet, jinho plays everything brass related on the treble clef pretty much, jisung also plays piccolo btw, jisung plays flute, kevin plays bari sax, mentioned Jung Jaehyun - Freeform, mentioned eric sohn, mentioned jo jinho, mentioned kevin moon, mentioned lee jaehyun, mouse!jisung, no angst (i think)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25544101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charons_boat/pseuds/charons_boat
Summary: No one was quite sure why he'd stuck with it so long, but everyone agrees that Jisung definitely deserves his place in band--especially Chenle.
Relationships: Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le
Series: A little bit of warmth (more, please) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1834276
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	Why are you so nervous (you shouldn't be, I like you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kingboo_ghosty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingboo_ghosty/gifts).



> i hope you like this hannah!! it's ur late birthday present,,
> 
> this is partially based on some of my experiences with one band boy (who i don't like anymore but now the cute memories get a better home :DD) 
> 
> also, i am jinho. i will play whatever i'm given i don't care if it's not trumpet music. jinho and i both agree that the tc baritone is our emotional support baritone cause they're just the right size to hug. i also hand out music a lot in band, and i've played all the song i mentioned. i lub them
> 
> (you don't really need to read the other two works to understand this)
> 
> (i put so many jokes from me and my friends in this kjsgbsfgs)

No one is quite sure why Park Jisung joined band in sixth grade. He is notorious for being scared of loud noises, after all: for the first year, he'd been so scared by the poor playing of the other kids that he'd never played. He'd come back to school after that summer significantly better, and it had been clear that he'd practiced all summer. It still took him a few months to get used to it enough that he played louder than a whisper.

Eventually, people quit asking and wondering why the mouse hybrid had joined the school band because he hadn't given up despite being so scared. He quickly became one of the best floutists in the band and was already playing some of the highest notes possible on the flute by our second year of highschool. He even started playing the piccolo, which was usually reserved for one or two seniors.

The band isn't very big despite the size of our school. That's what makes it feel like a kind of second family; well, except for the crush I have on the tall brunet. Mr. Lee calls out a couple new pieces of music, and I stand up and walk to the front of the room to take the folder labeled _Aztec Gold_. It's second nature by now to pass out music like this to the entire band, considering I've been doing it since eighth grade when I started doing it accidentally. I swear, the entire time I'm handing out music--snare drum to Eric, quads to Dowoon, bari sax to Kevin, first and second trumpet to Jaehyun and Hyunjae and treble baritone to Jinho (the senior who apparently played trumpet in seventh and eighth grade until he started playing parts for third trumpet, flugelhorn, b-flat horn, and even tc baritone, simply because no one else would and he had never cared either way)--I can feel someone staring at me. Then, of course, I'm in front of Jisung, and he's staring up at me from behind his circular glasses, and one of the small, mouse-ish ears nestled among his hair twitches at the sound of one of the freshman warming up.

"Uhm, piccolo this time?" Jisung smiles and nods, and I flip one of the sheets of music onto his stand with my cheeks beginning to burn bright red. I don't even know why I asked him this time, because the piccolo part is on the bottom of the first flute part. As I turn to continue down the line of flutes, he speaks up.

"Y'know, I think it's really cool that you can give out parts like this. You don't even need to ask anymore like most of the other kids that help." My cheeks go scarlet almost instantly, and I press my lips together.

"I mean, when you do it all the time it's easy. It's just a matter of memorization," I mutter, beginning to walk away again. He sighs almost happily and shakes his head.

"Seriously, you even know what to give Jinho. I don't even know what he _plays_." I laugh unintentionally, snorting before I can stop myself. Jisung laughs with me.

"Jinho is actually the easiest person in band to give music to. He'll play whatever you give him," I whisper to Jisung. He nods and finally lets me move on. Despite the delay, I still finish handing out the music before Hyungwon finishes his set. The french horn player happily hands the music over to me when I walk towards him, and he sits with a loud sigh of relief. He's a junior, but he usually doesn't pay much attention to what anyone else plays. Someone told me once that his instrument would be fifty feet long if you unraveled all the tubing, and I believe it: anytime I try to follow all the twists and turns with my eyes, I get lost after five or six turns.

Once everyone has music for both _Aztec Gold_ and _Holiday_ , I give the leftover music to our band teacher Mr. Lee, a cheetah hybrid dating a bear named Kun--I'd met him once before, when he'd been in his hibernation and hadn't wanted to be apart from Mark--and the choir teacher, Mr. Ji (who happens to be a giraffe hybrid). Mr. Lee lets me sit down before officially starting class.

* * *

  
I usually take part in color guard, but it's still a week out so I have to practice and play the clarinet with the rest of my section. Mr. Lee always lets me use the flags when I come to morning band early, though, so as soon as he arrives (I almost always get there before he does, simply because I only live about five minutes away while Mr. Lee lives in the next city over) and unlocks the guard closet for me, I'm tossing the flag up into the air. There's really only one person who comes thirty minutes early like I do, because most kids prefer to come as close to the start time of 6:30 AM as they can.

When Jisung walks in the door, he sits in front of me and just watches. Neither of us has our instrument set up, though I know Mr. Lee would make just about anyone else do so before messing around. Whenever I do something particularly pretty or cool with the flag, Jisung claps and compliments me. It makes me blush every time, but I make sure not to let it break my rhythm. I glance at him only once every dozen tosses, and he's blushing while staring at me everytime. I put the flag away fifteen minutes later, when a third person walks into the band room.

Jisung only opens his flute case when I sit in front of him with my clarinet case on my legs. I put the reed in my mouth as I set up the pieces of the black clarinet, and I glance at Jisung ever-so-often. I don't know why he joined band, or why he stayed, and I don't know why he watches me so often, but I'm glad for all of it.

At some point Jinho walks over and sits down next to us, trumpet in hand for the first time in a while. I wonder if Mr. Lee told him something about the plans for this morning as he pulls his mouth piece out of the brass instrument and holds it out to Jisung. The floutist laughs and shakes his head as he puts together his piccolo, minus the mouthpiece. I don't know when Jinho and Jisung started creating what they called a "trumpalo", but it was always funny to look at. Jinho buzzes into his trumpet mouthpiece and presses the tiny piccolo buttons in random patterns that definitely aren't official notes on the piccolo. He starts a weird sort of rhythm eventually, and that's when he stands up and starts marching around the room. I watch him roll his feet, clad in the same worn, black, high-topped tennis shoes he's had for as long as I can remember watching the curly-headed brunet march, and I realize he's playing a very rough version of _Paint it Black_ on the amalgamation of an instrument he and Jisung created at some indeterminate point. It's only when Kevin walks in that Jinho paces back over and gives the piccolo back to Jisung, who cleans it as Jinho reassembles his instrument and walks away.

"Wanna pitch match," Jisung asks suddenly. I have to force myself to hold back a laugh as I shrug and nod. Jisung finishes putting up the piccolo and then picks up the flute. The tall brunet tunes it before smiling at me. Pitch matching, another thing that was started at some point that I can't remember, is simply this: Jisung plays a note on his flute, and I try to sing the same note. Except, well, I really just use it as an excuse to sing the most absurdly high version of the note I possibly can; Jisung knows this, and uses it as an excuse to be one half of a loud, annoying whole. We keep it up until Eric and Dowoon start using our heads as makeshift drums, though thankfully they aren't using the drumsticks this time. We both cut off with bright laughter, knowing it won't last very long once we have to start marching in the streets around the school. At least the sunrise will be pretty.

* * *

  
Jisung almost always rests on bus rides to parades. It's not sleeping, because he's really just sitting with his eyes closed. Jisung always sits in front of me with his back to the window, and sometimes I get brave enough to sit on my knees in my seat and rest my cheek on the back of his seat with my hands gripping either side of my head. When I do, Jisung always notices almost immediately and opens his eyes to stare at me with a small smile on his lips. It's become a kind of contest almost, seeing who'll look the longest, who'll give in first. It takes longer to end each time, and we always end up with cherry-red cheeks.

This time, I'm the one to look away first. Jisung giggles quietly and continues staring at me as I sit back in my seat. I bite my lip and pull out my phone, turning around and sitting on the very edge of the seat with my legs crossed in front of me as I lean against the back of Jisung's seat again.

"You wanna watch this with me," I ask quietly, showing him the screen of my phone as I look for my earbuds. It's one of those miniature making videos where the person behind the channel makes tiny homes and stores.

"Sure," comes his quiet answer, and I plug the end of my earbuds into my phone and offer him an earbud. He doesn't take it immediately, and when I look at him, he's biting his lip. "You can come sit in my seat if you want. It'll probably be easier that way, and you wouldn't have to sit in such a painful way." My mouth drops open a little and I'm sure my cheeks get even more red than they already were. It's dark outside, just starting to get brighter as the sun begins to rise, but I can see Jisung blushing by the light of my phone and am sure he can see me blushing too.

It takes a few seconds of struggling and me almost getting stuck between the seats, but eventually I'm next to Jisung in his seat, both of us facing forward with our feet on the ground. He puts the earbud in his ear and I start the video. Neither of us talk as we focus on the video. All the videos from this person have calm, pretty music in the background, and I find myself relaxing and smiling softly as I watch them make tiny bookshelves and tables. Almost halfway through the thirty minute-long video, I realize that Jisung and I have at some point begun leaning against each other. Everywhere our bodies touch is warmer, and I bite my lip to stop the smile that attempts to crop up. I glance at him and decide to take a chance, leaning my head on his shoulder. He puts a careful arm behind my back and rests it on my shoulder for a second before carding it through my hair. I don't stop smiling this time.

* * *

  
Parades might be long and annoying most of the time, but the good part about being one of the groups that has to go first is that we end up with an hour and a half until the people in charge serve lunch. Usually I just hang out with the other color guard kids, but Jisung had specifically asked, as I helped him do the buckle on his helmet, if I'd hang out with him this time.

So, the moment I have my uniform safely in its garment bag and my instrument in its case, I set out to find Jisung. I don't know how he's already shaking out a blanket that one of the band moms brought, because I'd peeled out of my stuffy uniform as fast as I could, but there he was anyways. He smiles when he notices me and smooths out the corners of the blankets before gesturing to it and running off. I watch him leave with furrowed eyebrows before I take off my shoes and sit in one of the corners. Jisung comes back with some of the other kids and two handfuls of fruit snacks. Jinho and Kevin smile mischievously as Jisung drops one of his handfuls in front of me.

Kevin is the reason we all end up laying down on the blanket: he starts playing some video about flex tape, and really, it's kinda funny, and laying next to Jisung on the blanket makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, so that's that. Jisung ends up resting his head on his arms and closing his eyes, and I turn my head so I can watch him. I sigh quietly, and the older boys laugh quietly. Jinho reaches over and takes one of Jisung's packs of fruit snacks before I stop him, and Jisung's eyes open the moment Jinho starts opening the package--therefore catching me staring. His glare softens and he just stares back. His voice is soft and warm when he finally says something.

"I like you, Chenle." He doesn't sound like he's joking, though I still wait for the "sike!" I expect to be added at any moment. It doesn't come. Instead, he lays his hand out palm up and smiles softly at me. "If you like me back, hold my hand. If not, give me my fruit snacks back because Jinho stole some of mine." Jinho scoffs in mock-outrage, and I quietly lace my fingers with his. He smiles and closes his eyes again. "Don't just stare. Nap with me. And Jinho, if either of you steals any fruit snacks from either of us again, I'll beat you with my flute." I giggle and close my eyes. I don't even care that really, it's almost too hot out to be in any kind of physical contact with anyone.

* * *

  
On the ride back to school, after a long day of marching to the beat of _Holiday_ and spending the rest of the time with Jisung, the brunet floutist tells me that he joined band because he'd heard I was going to join and he'd had a crush on me. He says that yes, he'd been scared at first because everything was so much louder than he expected, but that he'd enjoyed it anyways, because he liked seeing how much fun _I_ was having.

I tell him that I'm glad he'd stayed.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twt @sunwooseok_ and i always appreciate comments :D


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